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17 January 2008 Edition

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Matt Treacy

Sledging – It isn’t cricket

THE thorny topic of “sledging” was in the news again last week. Nothing to do with sliding down frosty hills on sheets of corrugated iron, or even the O’Byrne Cup, I hasten to add. Rather it was in relation to the imposition of a ban on Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh for allegedly having racially abused Andrew Symonds of Australia in the Second Test at Sydney. “Sledging” is insulting opponents to break their concentration during a match.
Apparently Singh called the dreadlocked Symonds a “monkey”. Some Indian commentators claimed that this was not in fact meant as an insult as monkeys are the object of veneration by Hindus! Perhaps.
Australia – who many claim were the originators of the practice of “sledging” – had brought the complaint in what the Indians see as a piece of pettiness and bad sportsmanship – and totally hypocritical, given the Aussies’ mastery of the art. Definitely not cricket! That also appears to be the common perception among Australians.
It has become a huge issue in Australia where it is being cited as an example of how the practice of mouthing off to psyche out one’s opponents and induce “mental disintegration” has gone completely out of control. Former Australian batsman Justin Langer says he believes his former team mates have crossed the line even though he was apparently not behind the wall in dishing it out himself.
Other Australian sporting heroes – including Herb Elliot, who broke the world record for the mile in Dublin in 1958 – have enlisted the support of various Australian sports legends to apply moral pressure on the cricketers to give up their oul’ nonsense. 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash accused them of being out of touch and boasted that his own abuse of players like Boris Becker had been a key part of his success.


IT IS interesting to us in Ireland, of course, because it is a practice that has become increasingly common among GAA players – well, senior inter-county footballers to be more precise – and earned quite a bit of attention after last year’s Leinster final when Alan Brogan and Kevin Bonner of Dublin appeared to be “sledging” some of the Laois players.
What I (as an unbiased observer) perceived them to be doing was responding to a bit of “afters” from naturally disappointed and demoralised Laois players with the simple advice to, “Look at the scoreboard,” which perhaps sounded less friendly at the time.
But that’s besides the point. It did lead to Leinster Chair Liam O’Neill (who, coincidentially, happens also to be from Laois) to decide that enough was enough. Just like there had never been any pitch invasions before the Dubs, so there was no “sledging” before the Dubs.
All nonsense, of course. There have always been mouths and anyone who has ever played will have been abused or had members of their families or their pet cat verbally abused and insulted at some point or another. Generally, it was spur-of-the-moment stuff.
Recent years, however, have seen the advent of calculated goading of opponents, with certain players well recognised the length and breadth of the country as arch exponents. Indeed, the Australians again enter the picture as there is a school of thought that believes it was the example of the Aussies during the compromise rules games of the 1990s that inspired the original practitioners here. On the other side of the equation, Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos blames the influence of Gaelic football for the advent of Big Girl’s Blouse tackling in Australian Rules footie!


CERTAIN teams would be better known for it than others. Whether it is effective it is hard to say, although if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Dublin’s adoption of the tactic in 2006 might have been regarded as a tribute to their conquerors of the previous summer.
I have to admit I find it cringe-worthy and most Dublin players have abandoned it, or at least the silly in-your-face roaring that let one or two of them down in the last few years.
Somebody has to think of the children in all of this. I do, even if my own child’s first reaction to beating me at anything is to form a letter ‘L’ with her thumb and forefinger and scream: “In your face, Dad!” Miss Virginia Wade she is not.
Seriously though, it is a bad example for young shavers to watch their heroes make eejits of themselves and what they see them doing they will copy themselves in the local park, especially if encouraged to do so by mentors who believe too much in the art of psychological warfare.
It is all a long way from the innocent days of the 1970s. One of the worst things Jimmy Keaveney could recall was Mick Wright of Offaly calling him an oul “fish ‘n’ chip man”! So maybe that’s all that’s going on when you see some chap with a fluorescent gum-shield standing with his nose in another player’s mouth.  “Tofu eater! Bet you take pesto with your pasta.” Or, God between us and all harm: “Poopiehead.”


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